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Calling Any Lie Little is a Big Lie

There comes a point where diagnosis is necessary. That point comes more than once as we walk through life and end up in spots we never intended. When we reflect on things that didn’t go as we had originally hoped, the “why” gets us out of the ditch. Without the willingness to go to the root of the tree that’s producing the fruit, the fruit will come back in due season.

When unpacking the unraveling, we’ll find that the fall didn’t come off of a cliff, there were stairs leading down. Steps were taken to agree with the plans for our destruction. It was never about the short-term pleasure of the one time decision. It was the culmination of consequences as one lie gave way to the next.

Lies have increasingly become culturally acceptable, even in the church. I don’t mean tall tales of grandiose fiction, but the twists on the truth and positioning of words that controls perception. Those “little” twists give way to patterns of deception that are an open door to corporate and individual destruction.

Just before the fall of Cain, as he simply had a bad attitude about the blessings his brother Abel was receiving, God warned him. God told him, “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” in Genesis 4:7.

Sin is waiting and it sits outside of doors that we can choose to open or close. “Little” lies opens doors to big sin. Big sin has a purpose in our lives and that purpose is to kill, steal and destroy. The target of the attack is unto the destruction of all that is good. If that culmination of the plan can’t be accomplished in your lifetime, there is an enemy that is more than content to fulfill the plan in your children.

When I practiced law, there was a duty of “candor to the tribunal.” In other words, there was an ethical obligation to be completely truthful to the court. There was not room for deception or misrepresentation of any kind. If your integrity was in question, your license to practice law was in jeopardy.

Christ followers have a greater duty than that. “Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23. The guarding of our hearts includes the reigning in of our mouths. If we are allowing compromises into our reporting of truth, numbers, experiences, faults or other areas, we are allowing the scheme to take root.

We’ll know our heart needs attention which requires diagnoses when the “little” lies, even a single “little” twist on the truth, comes out our mouth. That stuff that seeps out of us comes from the heart (“For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” Matthew 12:34). When the ugly stuff bubbles up, it’s a good time to admit it and stop the advance of sin intended to kill us.